The college basketball season has arrived, and broadcasting great Dick Vitale has taken a long journey to again meet the sport at its starting line.

Surgeries, radiation treatments and chemotherapy amid a cancer fight kept him off the airwaves for two years until his return shortly before March Madness. But on Tuesday, the 86-year-old Basketball Hall of Famer will call a marquee opener between No. 6 Duke and Texas in a new event named in his honor.

His fight to get here — armed with a contract through the 2027-28 season — has forced Vitale to change routines to best ensure his health. That includes learning to say “no” more often and talking less on the day of a game, all antithetical to Vitale’s full-blast persona.

Yet there’s no dampening the familiar zeal in everything he does, fro

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